Health Insurance Reduces Poverty

By Qing Wai Wong, PHP Fellow

December 7, 2017

Databyte

A recent Health Affairs article pioneers a new way to gauge the impact of health insurance. Dahlia Remler, Sanders Korenman, and Rosemary Hyson developed a measure of poverty which differs from the Census Bureau’s measure of poverty by taking health into account. Through this measure, they demonstrated that public health insurance programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and premium subsidies on an exchange, reduced poverty rates by 4.6 percentage points. Children younger than 18 years of age benefited particularly from Medicaid and CHIP, with a 5.3% reduction in poverty. But the strongest overall relationship was felt by people on Medicaid who experienced a 17.1% reduction in poverty.

Qing Wai is a current MPH candidate at the Boston University School of Public Health pursuing certificates in Health Policy and Epidemiology. Her interests include policies that reduce health disparities and equal access to quality education as an important social determinant of health. When not pursuing her academic interests, Qing Wai can be found on the volleyball court, running, or volunteering for various youth development programs in the community.